Retinitis Pigmentosa

Thousands of people in the US have retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a disorder in which the rods and cones of the retina (the light receptors of the eye) slowly degenerate. RP is among the leading causes of blindness, which progresses over a period of ten to forty years. RP is one of the more difficult conditions to treat, and it can take a significantly longer time to treat effectively than other chronic degenerative eye conditions.

In Chinese, medicine RP represents a nutritive Liver Blood and and functional Spleen and Kidney Yang-Qi energy . When the Liver Blood is poor or insufficient, the eye do not receive nourishment for healthy function and structural regeneration. Yang-Qi weakness coupled with low-grade inflammation can indicate possible autoimmune situation and slowing metabolic activity. Due to the highly complex nature of Retinitis Pigmentosa, it takes series of intensive treatments to see the best results. Dr.Rosenfarb incorporates Micro Acupuncture, Electro-acupuncture, laser acupuncture and traditional Chinese Acupuncture methods.

Retinitis Pigmentosa is one of the top three eye conditions that Dr. Rosenfarb treats — a along with macular degeneration and glaucoma. RP patients can expect to recover varying degrees of vision field. We had very advanced patients recover 5-15 degrees, and others recover the entire 90-degree field of vision. In cases where the central vision is affected do to encroachment, CME or macular edema, the average recovery is 2-5 lines of visual acuity. Again, each case is different and results will vary from person to person.

After about 8-10 treatments, we retest and measurable improvements is determined through vision testing. Patients will usually notice improved visual fields, color vision, contrast, sharpness, dark adaptation and night vision. We typically recommend continuing series treatments until no further improvement is seen –in most cases this is about the first year. At that point we switch to maintenance at a frequency of once or twice per year to maintain vision.

Dr. Rosenfarb typically gets around a 85%-90% success rate with patients dealing with RP, Ushers, Rod-Cone Dystrophy, etc. Unfortunately, not all cases respond and after 20 years of experience, Dr. Rosenfarb can usually tell which cases are less likely to respond. Dr. Rosenfarb is the leading expert in the field of Chinese Medical Ophthalmology for Retinits Pigmentosa.

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Johns Hopkins RP Study

Dr. Rosenfarb recently teamed with researchers at Johns Hopkins University on the first ever clinical study to determine the efficacy of treating Retinitis Pigmentosa with acupuncture and other TCM therapies. Dr. Rosenfarb drew on his extensive training and clinical experience to develop the treatment protocol and trained staff at Johns Hopkins University to administer it to study participants.

Based on the success of that initial study, the NIH is funding a second, expanded clinical study in 2014 that will once again utilize Dr. Rosenfarb’s treatment protocol. The first peer-reviewed study was recently published in Clinical and Experimental Optometry.